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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23222377">For the Ferryman</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/IncurableNecromantic/pseuds/IncurableNecromantic'>IncurableNecromantic</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Klaus (2019)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>M/M, lonely men potentially catching feelings in what they think should just be a fliratious game</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 11:22:36</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,351</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23222377</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/IncurableNecromantic/pseuds/IncurableNecromantic</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Johan Johanssen IV just needs a boat ride across the strait. He may or may not end up riding something else. Eventually. </p><p>
  <i>Inspired by RoTLunatik's artwork on tumblr, which snapped my third eye wide open.</i>
</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Mr. Johanssen/Mogens</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>72</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>For the Ferryman</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoTLunatik/gifts">RoTLunatik</a>.</li>



    </ul></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Perched on a bench so new the smell of the woodshop cuts through the salt air, Johan Johanssen IV pinches off the middle finger of his glove. Best to shed a few layers now. It’s going to be cold on the water, far colder than the relative mildness he’s traveled through during these last dreary days before the solstice. It’s an old trick, refusing to acclimate too completely to the comfort of his warm clothes before he’s against the gale in earnest. He did it all the time back when he was more accustomed to traipsing over hill and dale, defiant of rain and snow and sleet.</p><p>The thought of the boy is enough to keep him warm, for now. Fourteen thousand letters from <em>Smeerensburg</em>. It had been a gamble, harder to do than he’d like to admit, but with these dividends… well, there was a bright future for the man who’d brought post to Smeerengsburg!</p><p>He knew Jesper had had the instinct in him after all. Four generations of postmen didn’t lie.</p><p>The rickety boatshed leaning over the water has not enjoyed as much care as the bench. There’s a crack in one window, a kink in the chimney shaft, a tilt in the hinge of the split door. He skims over three or four more minor inefficiencies in the building and finishes the removal of his gloves with a crisp snap. He'd have that shack in shipshape in 24 hours, if the world was his to correct.</p><p>Beside him, a warm bulk thumps onto the bench.</p><p>“You’re the one who paid in advance, right? Only one I got today.”</p><p>His coat staggers on his shoulders. Too surprised to glare, Johan scans the world from right to left and sees no other targets. By the time he turns his gaze to his new companion, he’s sure these words are directed at him.</p><p>“I believe so,” he allows. He gestures to himself. “Postmaster General Johanssen. And…?”</p><p>The seadog at his side smothers a belch. It scarcely makes him more presentable, all wild sideburns and shucked-back coat lapels. Bottle aloft, Johan’s new companion spreads his legs and fixes him with a leer that sways like the waves.</p><p>“And if you ain’t the finest thing that’s ever boarded my boat.” Another burp is choked down; Johan vaguely wonders about the state of his shoes at the end of this excursion. Sailors may be infamous, but no one has a completely cast-iron stomach. “Is there a Mrs. Johanssen?”</p><p>“Yes,” he replies, turning a little more to see how the sally lands, “previously.”</p><p>The seadog meets it with licked lips and a mischievous smirk. “Fantastic.”</p><p>It startles a snort out of him. His Dorete’s been dead longer now than they were married and he thinks of her every day. That anyone would dare to make such a comment…</p><p>Well. Jesper got the troublemaker gene from her, and that was the perennial trouble, wasn’t it? It’s why he’d never been able to impose limits on the boy, until his hand was forced at last. He has a soft spot for mischief.</p><p>Johan slips his hand into his jacket pocket and checks his pocket watch. The boat sailed at 3 p.m. It was 1 now. Still plenty of time for this cretin in a captain’s hat to sober up, provided he’d had the right inducement.</p><p>Johan reaches out and nicks the bottle. He lifts it to his lips in the same move as rising from his seat. It’s vile, a brown beer gone lukewarm and surely swimming with this backwater bumpkin’s backwash. But Johan earned his stripes in the gutters as well as the palaces, for only the postman goes everywhere. He finishes it and dashes the bottle on the rocks for the waves to claim.</p><p>“Pardon me,” he says, wiping the foam out of his moustache on the back of his hand. “I have a bit of paperwork to finish in the carriage. We leave at 3? I’ll be ready.”</p><p>The expression on the captain’s face shifts from broad astonishment to a sly, if listing, grin. Perhaps a sparkle of curiosity. He can see the cunning in the expression, clear as day, but Johan Johanssen IV has the critical advantages of sobriety and having been around the block a time or two ahead of this adventuring Odysseus.</p><p>Johan cloisters himself in the carriage with Burghard out at front. Two hours of stiff, sobering wind and there will be no danger in the journey, he’s quite sure.</p>
<hr/><p>“Anchors away, captain. We’re sailing off at once.”</p><p>And good riddance. It will be nice to have the boy back at home; for all his genius for causing aggravation, it’s been devastatingly quiet about the place without Jesper causing trouble every half-hour.</p><p>The house is enormous. His dining room is cold. The salutes are frigid. That’s how he likes it, most of the time, but having his son back, and in such trim condition, will be a boon indeed.</p><p>“Well, that’s a first.”</p><p>Johan glances up from his pocket watch. The drunkard whose tendencies Johan had gone to lengths to stymie is casting a bewildered look at his son.</p><p>Come to think of it, Jesper has been down at the mouth for a sybarite hurtling back into the lap of luxury. Scarcely any backtalk. And all those long glances out the back window. A prickle of unease works its way up his throat.</p><p>He must almost work to make his voice as dismissive as he should feel. “I beg your pardon.”</p><p>“Never saw a postman looking more miserable leaving than on the day they came in.”</p><p>The prickle becomes a sting. Something's wrong. He knows it because of something in the man’s eyes, or the directness of his gaze. The focus on Jesper. The calm, collected authority with which the boatman passes judgements on Johan’s son’s moods.</p><p>“Oh well!” The captain nudges him with an elbow. “Best leave it alone, I say. I’m sure it’s nothing that could fester and eventually become a source of resentment and regret.”</p><p>Hm. Well. He didn’t get to be Postmaster General by ignoring strong hints, well-placed.</p><p>He gestures to the captain — “one moment” — and strides over to sit before the boy. When he’s sure he’s got Jesper’s attention, he gives him The Eyebrow (half-expecting to hear Dorete’s stifled laughter from the non-existent hall) and waits to hear the whole story.</p><p>Then the sea-scoundrel takes him back to the mainland.</p><p>But not before he presses his son to his chest and holds him, so proud it aches in his bones.</p>
<hr/><p>Within a year he’s making a similar voyage to visit grandchildren. He hasn’t the heart to be horrified. The notice of the wedding arrived within days of the letter announcing Alva’s good health after the birth. For the first time in his life, he’s willing to allow the possibility that the mail was slow, and not give credence to the way young lovers are.</p><p>“Good afternoon, captain,” he says, rapping on the door jamb with the head of his walking stick. “Passage for one, if you please.”</p><p>The captain tilts back his cap to take him in in one long look. “Ahh. Mr. Johanssen again. Couldn't stay away, huh?”</p><p>Damnable smile. He’s not moved, not an inch.</p><p>“How is Mrs. Johanssen?” Johan replies, arching The Eyebrow.</p><p>“Positively glowing. Twins, y’know. Already running our postman ragged, too, you’ll be glad to hear.”</p><p>“Will I?”</p><p>The beast actually uncrosses and spreads his legs. “Well, I take you for the kind of guy who likes to see a little hustle-up in the troops.”</p><p>A smile demands place on his mouth and the knowledge that he has two healthy grandchildren and a blooming daughter-in-law on the other side of the strait does not incline him to stifling it.</p><p>“I rejoice to hear it.” He extracts his pocketwatch from his jacket and turns the face to the captain. “We’re close to the hour, aren’t we?”</p><p>The captain gestures to loyal Burghard standing with hands on the reins to see him off. “Just the one? Hoofing it?”</p><p>“Roughing it,” he agrees, “for the present. I’m an aged parent. Surely my doting child will see to my comfort.”</p><p>“Shorely,” the captain agrees. “No time like the present. Grab a perch, hot stuff.”</p><p>He observes the raising of the anchor. As the wet rope passes through strong hands, dragged up by strong shoulders, he fans his own fingers wide and presses his palm against his valise full of little comforts and considerations for the next generation. Good to remember why he's making the journey. Good to remember that he's much too old to watch too closely.</p>
<hr/><p>Johan only learns his name in a bar. He’s going to have to single-handedly establish a trade route to Smeerensburg if he ever wants to drink anything but ales as appetizing as a brick. He’s wheedled a glass of sacramental wine out of a particularly obliging lass but it can’t last long.</p><p>“Mogens!”</p><p>Jesper’s up in arms about something. He’s not going to weigh in on his son’s matters in his own town; for now, he’s happy to be an anonymous figure at the cozy tavern on the main drag, drinking a sweet, thin sauce of redeemed sin from a tankard.</p><p>“I can’t believe it! You were flirting with my dad?”</p><p>Ah. Perhaps not entirely anonymous.</p><p>“The tall drink of water? Ha! Relax, kid. He didn’t even notice.”</p><p>Johan turns his chair around and crosses his legs smoothly. No one, neither Ellingboes nor Krums, seem to be interested in the conversation. Lovely.</p><p>“It’s quite all right, Jesper. I was fully aware.” He takes a sip, enjoying the startled expressions on their faces. It ignites that long-stifled ember of mischief in his own heart. A bit of their own vexatious medicine, at last. “In fact, it was rather flattering.”</p><p>He loves his son more than he’s ever loved anyone in the world.</p><p>That doesn’t mean he savors his boy’s expression of mortified horror any less.</p>
<hr/><p>“Back so soon, foxy? You think they’d have more respect for your grey years than making you wander all the way out here for the privilege of a few dinners.”</p><p>“We rear our children to dispense with us. Surely it’s a sign of my own success if I must travel like blind Oedipus.”</p><p>“Without even an Antigone to guide those graceful steps?”</p><p>“Ah. You’ve read it?”</p><p>“Are you surprised?”</p><p>“Not in the slightest, captain. If anything, it only inspires me to send along more classics for the Smeerensburg municipal library.”</p><p>“You’ll work Alva into an early grave if you do. Send me translations instead.”</p>
<hr/><p>He arrives on shore a day before the twins’ fourth birthday, waggling a bottle of wine to coax out his almost-friend. It’s just a little treat, after all. He has become confident in Mogens’ skill on the waves, no matter how many sheets the sailor has in the wind.</p><p>“Been a rough year,” Mogens says, taking a pull from the bottle. They sit on the bench, rather less perfect than it had been at first. The kink in the chimney is fixed, at least. Johan is going to hire someone to knock out that cracked window and force a crisis. “Klaus passed.”</p><p>The name he knows, but not the face. Johan has to search his memory but soon finds the white-haired long-beard with the hauntingly familiar nose tucked away in the recesses. “My condolences, captain.”</p><p>“Not so much my loss, really. It’ll be harder at Christmas. That was theirs.”</p><p>They let it hang in the air on this side of the strait. For a minute or two he remembers losing Dorete and wonders whether any of the words he'd needed would benefit his son. He remembers all the impotence, the breathless tears, the hollow suffering of the days and years after. Would the promises of growing scar tissue help his child ease into this new, emptier world?</p><p>Dear God, he hopes not. He hopes Alva will be the one to break Jesper, long after he is gone.</p><p>“I imagine so,” he says, taking the bottle from Mogens’ hand. The neck of the bottle is warm where he wrapped a fist around it and the glass is hot against his lips where it had been touched. He drinks a swallow too many and passes it back. “... thank you for telling me. I’ll be gentle.”</p><p>“You? Doubtful. You seem to like it rough."</p><p>"Do I seem so? I'm sure that's not how I wish to present myself."</p><p>"Oh, you've got a light enough touch with the subordinates, sure. But you managed to whip His Nibs into shape, so I have to assume you can turn it on when you need to."</p><p>“I can. In fact, several men live in terror of meeting me down a dark alley.”</p><p>Mogens slides him a glance. “Ah, they just couldn’t handle you once they got you there, and they know it.”</p><p>He takes the bottle back. “Well, who could?”</p><p>“Issat a challenge?”</p><p>Johan tilts his head and considers the option. He likes Mogens’ body, fair enough. He likes the soft swell of his stomach and the wickedness in his smirk. It’s been a long time since he had anyone sharp and daring enough to take such liberties with him. Even Dorete had always been more coy than naughty when they were together. Thirty-five years is a long time to go without wild, mischevious men to warm his bed.</p><p>Johan swirls the wine in the bottle like it’s a bit of sherry in a glass and gives Mogens his least-uninviting look. Mogens stretches an arm across the bench back, curling behind his shoulders.</p><p>“Has anyone ever told you how good you look in that suit?”</p><p>Johan smiles. “No, but how kind of you to mention it.”</p><p>Mogens steals the bottle of wine back. Johan looks him up and down, lingering.</p><p>“Perhaps you’d like how good I look without it?”</p><p>He doesn't say it only for the pleasure of watching wine come out of the erstwhile captain’s nose, but that is a very nice fringe benefit.</p>
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